Rites of passage

I'm so proud of my Jakeybear today. He stayed at Nanny and Grandad's last night with his sister who spent her first night away from me ever last night. Up until about a week ago Jake had insisted on continuing to use his old baby monitor (albeit a recently upgraded-to-a-2-way one) as he like to know that we could hear him when he was in bed at night and he could speak to us without having to come downstairs or shout and wake Roo up. He's always been very much a people person and really doesn't like being on his own, so the thought of us only being at the other end of the two-way was I suppose quite comforting.

The thing is, he's nearly 6 now and it's the one thing that I hadn't expected to last beyond babyhood. He still has his 'blankie' type thing and a teddy but has recently begun to decline 'needing' them (much less anyone else seeing him with them), and the other night after a bout of excessive calling out we took the monitor out for the night. Then the next night we put it back on, but out on the landing and he's not shown much concern about bringing it back in his room so this prompted us to reconsider using his 6th birthday next month as a 'rite of passage' in doing away with it ceremoniously. We decided that we might trial this out by asking Nanny to 'forget' to pack it when bringing the kids home. He hasn't even mentioned it tonight, I'm so proud.

Earlier on when he arrived home he came bounding up to me telling me how he'd had a great time at Nanny's and he didn't need me anymore(!). I was a little puzzled by this so questioned him further and he proceeded to tell me that the one thing he struggles with when sleeping away is now gone (there is a point right just before he goes to sleep when his internal homing beacon switches on and all he wants to do is come home to Mummy and Daddy). I asked him what was different about this time and he told me that 'I'm a big boy now, it's gone' and so I asked him about his nightly routine and what had changed in him and he told me that last night as usual Grandad had read him some stories and sat with him until he fell asleep. Only this time he woke up after Grandad had gone and he recognised the homing beacon feeling but reasoned with himself (like we've always told him) that he was just tired and he'd be asleep again in a minute, and then the moment passed.

 That's a massive step for our Jakey, possibly one of the biggest and I was so pleased that he felt that it was part of his journey to becoming a big boy, it was totally evident to see his own pride too, it was just beautiful.